Three Things I Wish I'd Known: Carla Ann Rowland

[Carla Ann Rowland]

When I joined the Atlassian Community I started as an Power User/Jira Project manager and worked my way up to Jira Instance Administrator. I had started using Jira when it was Server v. 6 and User support was "vapor."

When I started I wish:

1. Understood the "scope" of the talented resources in the community.

When I first started posting questions, I was hopeful someone could help me as I was all alone in the sense the I was the only Jira Administrator in my workplace. I was relieved when my question was answered. I was not longer alone,  I had resources help from fellow users and soon noticed the individuals who had more experience with specific add-ons. These power users sometime included their expertise in their community name and could be an employee of the company that authors that add-on or just an experienced power user/teacher. 

Some people who try to answer are new themselves to the community and can be new to the tools so patience is required as they learn and grow and want to share their knowledge. I remind myself there can be more than one solution or approach to answer someone's question.

The diversity of talent is one of the strengths of the community.  

        2. Understood the "hierarchy" of the community

I noticed as the community grew some people had tags "Community Leader." I wondered what that was and assumed it was formal employees of Atlassian. Then when I searched and finally found a link to become a formal member of the ACE, 2 years ago, I learned more on how the community was structured and it has changed and grown. 

        3. How many questions go un-answered.

When I reviewing questions when I started my knowledge share journey I was surprised to see so many unanswered questions. So I set myself a goal to check for those questions first and if they are not too old (posted date) and too old of a release date I try to answer them.

Some times I might ping the person who posted to see if it is still a viable question--because in todays workplace people move.

So thank you to the teams who work on the code to allow us to filter question by product, etc.

[BHUSHAN PATIL]

Thanks for sharing your Atlassian Community journey. Your support and contributions are truly valued in making the community successful.

[Jimmy Seddon]

Extremely well put @Carla Ann Rowland!  Your points describe a number of my feelings back when I first discovered the community.

As to the "Unanswered questions" point, I do much the same as you.  I ay not be an expert in that product, but If I think I can help I'm going to reach out.  Some times just having someone ask you to explain the problem in a little more details allows you to see a solution.

Thanks for sharing this!

[Carla Ann Rowland]

Thank you for your wonderful comments

[Aaron Geister_Sentify]

Advice is spot on and the back story is great. Thanks for the valuable data here. I think a lot of share the same view.

[Andy Gladstone]

@Carla Ann Rowland spot on. Thank you for committing this to writing.